Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Musings from the sideline

It's been a little over 3 months since I started my break from WoW. I didn't really want to take this break; I have always had some kind of weird pride in "been playing since august 2007 and never even took a break", but now I couldn't justify keeping at it any longer. This break should have happened at the end of Wrath and Cata as well, but it didn't. I think that even though I had run out of stuff to do, I was kind of worried that if I allowed myself to take a break, it could lead to me not coming back at all after kicking the habit. That is, I knew that my playing habits were unhealthy.

Two different kinds of unhealthy actually.

One, I am guilty of turning down real life invites/events because of WoW. I've ignored phone calls and text messages because of WoW. I've pushed my cats away from my keyboard and desk because of WoW (gasp!). I've stayed logged in despite not having anything to do. I've ended nights with the thought "I've played way too much today, tomorrow I won't play at all" to then log in the second I wake up the next morning. I've checked WoW-news, theorycrafting and transmogging at work, beyond what I would think of as a reasonable amount of time. I've prioritzed WoW over pretty much everyone and everything in real life at times...

Two, I have a bad back. The thing with my back started before I started to play WoW, so I'm not gonna put the blame on WoW. I think it was a combination of too much stress at work, and too much relaxing after work (cause of the being dead-tired and beaten) that started the whole thing. The last 1,5 years it's been escalating though, and I've been through countless hours of physical therapy without really getting any better. I've had a nagging feeling that sitting in my computer chair at work and at home has at least slowed my progress to get better, and perhaps even worked against it. So when I decided to take my break in April, I also viewed it as an experiment, "will time away from all computer chairs make me better?". Of course, the experiment is already flawed, as I have changed up some other routines as well. I do 3 strength workouts per week, I go to physical therapy 2 times a week, and I go for walks every day. I've avoided my computer, and have instead been surfing on my phone, playing games on my PS3 and phone, and I have watched a hell of a lot of Netflix. And although I am better now than what I was 6 months ago, I'm not better than what I was one year ago, so I'm not really sure what to conclude in this regard.

The first month away from the game was kind of nice! I managed to avoid Twitter, WoW Insider and other blogs, just as I had meant to. And that was actually far worse than not playing any longer! But then I started checking Twitter and Feedly again. And this last month... I've wanted to play again so badly! I eventually made a list over what kind of things that would be good reasons to resubscribe, just to keep myself on track:

New content, which would be the pre-launch event.

My server connected with another server, so I can make alts with purpose and a future.

Some goals. Something I want to do. Hanging out in Shrine is out of the question!

And what do you know... My server IS getting connected! Probably next week. :) With Bronzebeard, a server I don't really know anything about, but I'm thrilled nonetheless!

As for the goals... Yeah, I have to keep thinking about that one for a bit. I could level some new alts. (Priest maybe? Or perhaps a warrior as something other than prot? A paladin? Ooh, ooh, a shaman!) And I have that 5th monk, Zenja, that is only level 85. I could probably do some pvp... And some Ulduar-runs for shards for my Val'anyr. Challenge modes on another character? (My paladin would be great, I love that set! Too bad I can't pally very well.)

On to the final thing I want to cover in this post. With the knowledge of my own unhealthy relationship to WoW, I feel like I shouldn't jump back into this blindly. While I've played other games, watched tv shows and read comics during this break, and in much the same way that I would normally play WoW, all these other things had pause buttons. And I didn't lock myself away from the world completely. There's gonna have to be some ground rules. Preferably realistic ones, so I won't break them straight away.

Physical rules:

3 strength workouts every week

Physical therapy as needed

A 30 min walk every day

Getting up from the chair at least every 30 minutes to stretch legs/back (everyone should do this!)

8 comments:

Fantastic post. My play style before the break I took this summer matched your description. You should read DiscoPriest's guide to playing WoW on a treadmill (I've thought about doing that so much!) or just changing to a standing desk. Wish you the best while you consider your future in the game, but especially with those life goals outside of game!

Hope your back will be perfeclty fine soon. I have simliar problems. Taking regular walks/hiking works for me. Your resolutions for WoW sound great. I also just log in when I know exactly what I want to do. But I'm no guildmaster, so there are less duties. Not sure whether parental control will work though, especially when you need those few extra minutes you might be tempted to lift the restriction. :)

Hehe, I know. :) I've set up parental control now, with very lose and realistic restrictions, and I've made sure I don't have easy access to the controls. But yeah, I'll have to depend on my common sense a little as well. :)

This is such a good post! hits close to home :PI think your reasoning is good, you are identifying potential 'threats' to your lifestyle, and making concious choices to alleviate any overcommitment..It has been about a year since I stopped playing, I ended up coming back early this year for a tiny bit of casual PvP.. did that for about a month or two then stopped again.. I am also trying to work out a better healthy balance in playstyle... is there anything you used to do that you avoid? I think hardcore raiding may be a thing of the past for me :(

Hiii. How nice of you to stop by again. :) And thank you for the well wishes!

I ended up buying a 1 month game card about two weeks ago and set up the parental controls (pretty losely, but it logs me off when it's time to go to sleep). When the month is over I'll have some play time reports and ofc my own behaviour to evaluate, but I can already tell now that I'm pretty much doing whatever I've always done. Which means I have some work to do. :-/ Being aware of something isn't always enough by itself.